Personal fabrication machines, such as 3D printers and laser
cutters, are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. However, designing
objects for fabrication still requires 3D modeling
skills, thereby rendering such technologies inaccessible to
a wide user-group. MixFab is a new mixed-reality environment for personal fabrication that lowers
the barrier for users to engage in personal fabrication.
Users design objects in an immersive augmented reality environment,
interact with virtual objects in a direct gestural manner
and can introduce existing physical objects effortlessly
into their designs.

Mixed Reality

MixFab provides an immersive, mixed-reality environment where virtual and physical objects coexist. Figure a shows a user placing an existing physical object into a virtual one, which interacts with the phsyical entity by occluding it. Even though one object is virtual, the other one a physical entity, both objects share the same space.

Existing objects can be scanned in place to make them virtual ones; either instanntenously with limited precision, or more detailed usin a 3D scanning process within a minute. This integrated transition of physical to virtal objects further blurs the line between virtual and physical objects.

Virtual objects in MixFab can be manipulated as if they were physical entities. They can be grabbed, moved around and rotated much like one would in the real world.

Things designed with MixFab

We designed a few objects with Mixfab; a set that is by no means exhaustive but only shows what it can be used for. All of these objects interact with a previously existing artefact, such as a pen, toy car or mobile phone. During the design of e.g., the phone dock, the phone itself was used to create a slot of the right size.